I used to call this blog "Improve. Every. Day." For awhile, I was improving every day. But, as you grow to be more mature and the surroundings and circumstances of life tell you your greater purpose, you have to answer the call. I have been inspired by the life of Joseph Vincent Paterno, and the incomprehensible impact he made on the world. I simply live now for two purposes - to do what's right, and impact the world every day.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Days 20 - 24: Catching My Breath

The last five days have gone by so quickly, I didn't even realize it had been that long since I posted until my friend Brandon brought it up today while we were out ... at least I know somebody reads this! I could sum up the past five days as: work, gym, sleep, repeat. I haven't really gotten too much done otherwise because after I finish a shift and come home it's either 11pm, or I'm equaling the exhaustion I feel on gamedays.

I've gotten in great workouts the past few days. Unfortunately I've made the decision to stop doing much work on my chest and shoulders because whatever injury I have on my right shoulder has progressed to the point where it was painful to swim today, so, I'm going to see how I heal with a few weeks off from lifting. It won't really affect my performance on the field or conducting, thankfully I don't have to deal with any weight resistance while I'm in uniform. Anyway, I'm starting to get to the point where I start "turning it up", as I coined it last year. The workouts will be longer and more punishing, more cardio-based as opposed to weightlifting, the emphasis on stretching will go up, and I'll be brushing off the dust on a familiar piece of fine literature called "Penn State Blue Band: Marching Fundamentals". In just over five weeks I'll be back in State College getting ready for the season to start. That's it, just five weeks from Tuesday. My last five weeks of the summer, and my last five weeks of being 20. It's now just under two months until I'll be standing in the back of the end zone waiting for the drum taps to start. Unreal.

I did some flips yesterday in the yard after the storms came though. The land here in the Poconos is rather... uneven and if you removed the grass, there would probably be more rocks than dirt underneath, so I'm always a bit uneasy about practicing at home, considering the first 15 yards of my running start is gravel. I figure if I can land them cleanly here, I can land them cleanly anywhere. Anyway, here's my footage of two out of three that I did that day, the first one I flipped out of the frame... (If it's not here when you read the post, it's because I'm uploading it now and embedding it in an edit... just check back).

Friday I was lucky enough to have the day off from work, so Brandon and I went out to the Guitar Center in Scranton and I spent some time looking at a new 4x10" bass cabinet (which means four ten-inch speakers in the cabinet) to replace the 8x10" cabinet I sold, since it was far too massive to bring with me to PSU. I ended up buying a used Ashdown Mag410T Deep for $250, although I was extremely close to picking up a new Ampeg SVT-410HLF, but that would have run me $630. I'll be wired into a system at most of these bars/clubs downtown this fall, so I don't have to worry about providing all of the power, which I why I went with the amp which will get the job done. It sounds great, I can't even tell it was used, so I got a steal considering what I paid for it.

I'd say aside from Friday, today was the best day out of the past five days. I went down and spent the entire day laying in the sun with Brandon and his family on his dock along Lake Wallenpaupack. I'm beyond burnt, but I couldn't be happier. The sun finally was out on a day I'm off from work. I'm completely drained and my attention span isn't all there as is evident in this post... blame the sun for that. Tomorrow I'll be teaching an alto sax lesson, practicing some percussion and piano, and probably hitting the gym for a pretty brutal cardio session.